February is a brutal month. The bleak days were intensified by the looming approach of my partners work trip to India while I was to stay home with our 3 month old and 3.5 year old. In the days leading up to his departure I felt dread. Unable to wrap my mind around the seemingly endless 17 days.
We introduced screen time when our son was 3 years old (there was one exception when my son and I flew to Paris alone just before his 3rd birthday. In the subsequent months he would often say, ‘We should go back to Paris so I can watch the IPad’. ‘Sure!’ I’d say, feeling very clever - he seemed to believe shows only existed when one was on an airplane).
We first instituted a ‘movie night’ on Fridays. But times have changed… at the end of the day in order to get dinner ready, have a minute to chill out by myself, or breastfeed without also having to take notes from my toddler on my (uninspired, in his opinion) 3CPO voice (he also mentioned it was too much like my Paddington voice, to which I replied incredulously, ‘They are both British!’). So yes, we are blasting through seasons of Tumble Leaf while I am home alone. I try to limit it to 1hr and never two days in a row, but that ideal is not always realized. Only a few months ago this would have shocked me. I am sure I am not the first parent to say; Daniel Tiger saved my life.
I wanted someone to tell me what to do... or at least tell me I wasn’t doing everything wrong when it came to screen time. When researching parenting issues I try to keep it simple and go straight to the primary source, the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Simply put, American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends no screens of any kind for children under two years of age and no more than 1 to 2 hours per-day for children 3 years and older. They recommend that you ‘co-view’ programs with your child to provide opportunities for discussion… but then there is no point so I’m not doing that. Figure it out kid! Complete list of their recommendations here:
For children younger than 18 months, avoid use of screen media other than video-chatting. Parents of children 18 to 24 months of age who want to introduce digital media should choose high-quality programming, and watch it with their children to help them understand what they're seeing.
For children ages 2 to 5 years, limit screen use to 1 hour per day of high-quality programs. Parents should co-view media with children to help them understand what they are seeing and apply it to the world around them.
For children ages 6 and older, place consistent limits on the time spent using media, and the types of media, and make sure media does not take the place of adequate sleep, physical activity and other behaviors essential to health.
Designate media-free times together, such as dinner or driving, as well as media-free locations at home, such as bedrooms.
Have ongoing communication about online citizenship and safety, including treating others with respect online and offline.
Complete article:
A handy tool designed by the AAP is the Family Media Plan. You can quickly plug in a bit of information and this helps you track how much media you are using weekly. Sometimes it’s not as much as you think!